"I've Fallen and I Can't Get Up"

If there ever was a bandwagon, I am quite certain that I fell off of it. Or was it a turnip truck?

I was supposed to be doing the 31 days to a better blog thing. And a number of other series I began to write and have not been working on in ages.

Come to think of it, I was also supposed to get some homeschooling done. Not much of that going on around here this week, either. Nor housekeeping. Nor cooking. Cereal anyone?

The only thing going on around here lately has been pregnancy brain fog, doctor visits, a bit of nausea and EXTREME exhaustion. Heavy on the extreme part. Either that, or I've hit a bout of accelerated aging and I'm fixin' to turn 60 before I hit 40.

So, since I'm looking around for a 'Clapper' and pondering the deep mysteries of why something smaller than a gerbil could suck every bit of spring from my step...

...please enjoy this brief list of brain drivel I thought important enough to share:

1) I've gotten a few questions about my KONOS/Unit Study planner pages in the past few weeks (I'm not the only one looking forward to a new school year!). Here's my public answer (I apologize if I haven't emailed you back - I'm drowning in emails):

My planner pages are not available any more because I broke my blog. I had the first two years worth of images and files hosted at Geocities. [I told you people I was a dinosaur. You didn't believe me.] If anyone can please help me procure a maid, a secretary, a nanny, about twenty crates of highly caffeinated Italian Coffee (a personal Barista that would work all hours would also be nice)... I might be able to get this blog fixed. Maybe a truck full of cash would be easier? Then I could hire one of my talented friends to suffer instead?

Works for me.

In the mean time, if you would like to donate a tip to my jar, I would love to email you a copy of my planner page in PDF format. You just have to agree not to modify, sell, or redistribute it. Except for personal use of course. YOU GO GIRL!

2) Oh, yes, the picture up top. That was about 12 hours in to our drive home from Tennessee when we went to Blissdom in February of 2010. If you'll remember, my mom had gotten released from the hospital after a near death experience and was still wearing her paper bracelet... and we were driving straight through - from Nashville to Austin. What a night. And a next morning. All in one. Morgan and I (sense of humors still in tact) were taking a potty break in a very YELLOW roadside restroom in the wee hours of the night. In the snow. Both ways. Uphill. Without shoes.

OK, OK, we had shoes. Hers just didn't match. And one belonged to her brother.



Story of my life.

3) All week I've been trying to blog. I've been head-blogging. Shower-blogging. Bed-blogging. And after a while, it's like a carbon copy. All the amazing posts that I was working on start to look like the baby's attempt to make happy faces on his sister's math page. "No comprende. It's a riddle."

If you know what song that line came from, you are as old as dirt ... or as old as me. Whichever is older.

Back to my story. What were we talking about? Oh... yes... blogging.

Well, in my attempt to blog, every time I would get online, I would fall in to the evil choke hold of my email's clutches. The computer would spew some foul thing about archiving me and my Gmail would freeze as another page -or three- full of unchecked emails would appear to keep me from escaping. So, for the past few days, when I was feeling good enough to get online, all I did was DIG. OUT. OF. EMAIL.

Long story short. Or maybe it's short story long by now? I ended up falling upon the gem of the month (inside my email box, of all places): Ann Voskamp's most recent post about hearing from God - shining out of all those junk-messages and PR pitches like a beacon of hope...

WELL, don't take my word for it! Read it for yourself.

After reading her blog, I didn't feel much like writing any more this morning. So I tried listening instead. Mostly I just heard the kids bickering and making excuses about why the chores weren't done. Then I wished I was in Canada helping Ann on the farm instead of living in suburbia down here in Texas. Sure would be cooler... and she did mention peaches (they are my favorite fruit).


4) I found my second grade through fifth grade bestest friend [BFF4E] on Facebook today. I thought I would never find her because her maiden name was SO. COMPLETELY. GENERIC. Long story short, I found her through her SISTER's marriage records (free search in the county where she lived). Then I looked up her brother-in-law's Facebook page (hoping that he would be online since a lot of guys would rather chew glass - my husband included) and scrolled through his friends. There she was! I couldn't believe it.

Too bad she lives in another state. Just you wait, girl. I'm going to dig out the old letters and pictures if there are any that survived the flooding at our Houston house. Surely I have something.

I do have an interesting story about our friendship: We spent half of third grade in the 'dunce corner' with some evil teacher that hated us (her desk was moved to the pencil sharpener on the side of class, and my desk was moved by the teacher's desk in front of the class). She did it because we got caught passing notes. We never stopped passing notes. We would color them yellow and roll them around pencils and pretend to need to sharpen them so we could drop them off. Or she would wad hers up and throw it in the trash and when the teacher wasn't looking, I would dig it out and read it. Diabolical, I know.

There's your reason #8,926 to homeschool. No temptation to pass silly notes instead of doing your work. OH, wait... my daughter sends notes to her friends through the mail, my mom - the piano teacher, and email. There goes reason #8,926.

I guess notes are just bound to happen in tweeny girls - no matter what. The poor kids have email. Now they can be ten times as goofy in nine-trillion times the speed and volume. I'm so glad that email and facebook weren't readily available until after I was out of my teens. Heaven forbid the dirt that people would have on me now!



5) If you've been tweeting with me on Tweet Deck, you'll already have this little tidbit of information: Zofran really works.

I had a sonogram at the doctor's office this week (not yet 12 weeks along, so NO, I won't know the gender until 20 weeks for certain). Baby looked fine (albeit feisty - she was kicking and bouncing around like a kernel of popcorn). We saw arms, legs, etc, etc. I mentioned to the doctor that I was tired of eating saltines and drinking nasty, $6.00 4-packs of organic Ginger Ale. [Not the Boylan stuff... some other all-natural ginger-packed stuff that I have found almost as nauseating as the nausea itself.]

"Oh, you need some Zofran?" the doctor chirped. Kind of odd when your OBGYN is half of your size and age - and has never had any of her own children.

"Sure." I said, as nonchalantly as possible. She handed me a script.

I tried not to speed to the grocery store. I promise.

Let me just tell you, that I'm one happy camper. Hope the insurance will pay for the next 9 pills after these are gone. If not, I found out that HEB has melt-in-your-mouth tabs of Zofran generic on their 5$ prescription club list. TAKE THAT HMO PILL PLAN!

I'll take it, too.

And hopefully, THAT, folks - will enable me to return to blog land. I know you've been on the edge of your seats wondering why it had been four days, right? Well, now you know.

There's hope I might get up off of the floor yet... at least until I fall out of the next turnip truck.

The end.